Investor advocates urge Amazon to hire more women execs

In the wake of sexual harassment allegations against a now former Amazon executive, a group that advocates for investors sent a letter more than a week ago to the online giant, urging it to improve the diversity of its senior executive ranks, among other things.

The letter is the second filed by CtW Investment Group, which works with union-sponsored pension funds, and a sign that some investors are growing concerned about the reputation hit companies could face from the recent flood of harassment headlines.

“We believe that the evidence suggests that Amazon’s gender diversity gap creates significant risks for long-term shareholders, and that further delays in rethinking Amazon’s approach to human capital management may have dire consequences,” CtW’s executive director, Dieter Waizenegger, said in the letter, which is addressed to Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos. (Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

The letter also cites the perception of Amazon as “an excessively high-pressure workplace” and calls for the board to take a number of steps, from setting targets for gender diversity to having a labor-law expert review employment contracts.

Richard Clayton, CtW’s research director, said that one of the company’s concerns with Amazon was the time lag between 2015 — when producer Isa Hackett said she made complaints to the company about behavior by former executive Roy Price — and this October, when Price resigned from Amazon after being suspended by the company. “Why was there a two-year delay?” Clayton said.

The letter also cites the number of women Amazon has in senior executive roles, compared with other tech companies, and asserts that could have an impact on how the company addresses allegations.

It cited numbers from a recent New York Times story, which reported that just one of the top 16 executives (6 percent) at Amazon, known as the “S-team,” is a woman.